"Now one each, please," said Miss Tollicks, "just to be sociable; and then you can speak up for the quality of my goods. How do you find the snuff, Mr --?" "Space, ma'am," said Matt. "Good; very good, ma'am, but not durable." "That's right," exclaimed Miss Tollicks, as she pressed the two mild Havannas she had brought in upon her visitors. "Don't mind me, pray--I am trying to get used to smoke as well as snuff." Septimus and Matt were both non-smokers, but as they exchanged glances they came to the conclusion that they could extinguish their cigars as soon as they were outside. So Septimus set the example, with a very ludicrous cast of countenance, by placing the little vegetable roll in his mouth, and Miss Tollicks tore off a piece of paper from a square on the counter, doubled, lit, and handed it to the smoker. Septimus Hardon's face was a regular study as Matt, grumbling to himself, "Why didn't she make it snuff?" watched him trying to light his cigar--a new feat to him entirely. "The other end first, sir," growled Matt; and in a rather confused way Septimus made the requisite alteration, and then sucked and puffed so vigorously that he extinguished the light, which he re-lit at the fire. But the next moment his face changed from one of comical resignation to a state of intense wonder, as old Matt, under the excuse of helping himself to a light, was turning over some leaves of a heap of waste-paper on a chair by the door. Suddenly Septimus dashed the lighted paper upon the table, hurriedly extinguishing it with trembling hands, but not without oversetting his glass of spirits-and-water. "What is the matter? Have you burnt yourself?" cried Miss Tollicks. "Is it, sir?" cried old Matt, reaching across the table. But Septimus Hardon did not move for a few seconds, but stood with his hands pressed down over the roughly-folded piece of paper, into which the spirits-and-water was now soaking, as it made a way between his fingers. "Why didn't I give you a splint!" exclaimed Miss Tollicks, whose mind was full of goose-grease, starch-powder, and cotton-wool. "Is it very bad?" But Septimus Hardon did not speak, only slowly and with palsied hands unfolded the soaked paper; but even then he could hardly read it for the mist that swam before his eyes. Old Matt, though, not to be behindhand, pulled out his glasses, and stretched out his hand to reach the paper; but Septimus shrank back, and then read with difficulty, for the ink had begun to look blurred with the wet: S. Hardon, Medicine and at-dance 2.